India's largest nuclear plant hit by data leak; Blueprints allegedly leaked on dark web

The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, located in Tamil Nadu, has reportedly fallen victim to a ransomware attack orchestrated by the group known as World Leaks. A recent report from Reuters indicates that the hackers claim to have accessed sensitive information from a company under the Reliance Group, with some of this confidential data already surfacing on the dark web. Among the leaked materials are technical blueprints related to various components of the nuclear facility. In a statement, Reliance Group confirmed that their data was compromised during this cyber incident, which involved information stored on a server run by Yotta, an Indian third-party data center provider. The leaked documents are said to date from 2016 to mid-2025, although their authenticity has yet to be verified. Reports suggest that the files included not only engineering blueprints but also supplier details, meeting notes, inspection reports, equipment evaluations, and insurance documents. Alarmingly, World Leaks has claimed to have uploaded approximately 858,000 files linked to the Reliance Group, with over 19,000 of these containing sensitive data. This is not the first time World Leaks has targeted major corporations; they have previously hacked companies like Nike and Tata Group. Their modus operandi typically involves stealing company data, demanding ransom payments, and threatening to publish the stolen information online. In June, the group asserted that they had breached the Tata Group, taking confidential files that included sensitive information from Apple and Tesla, along with a ransom demand of $1.5 million. Currently, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) is engaged in discussions with Reliance Group to ascertain the full scope of the breach. Meanwhile, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is actively investigating the incident. Notably, the Kudankulam facility was previously linked to a cyber attack in 2019, when malware associated with a North Korean hacking group was detected on its administrative network.